Last week this blog focused on those who keep live animals in their workplace offices. If doing so helps you work more efficiently, I say go for it.

If I kept live animals in my workspace, I personally would find them distracting—even an aquarium full of fish swimming about. However, I do not want my office space to be sterile and devoid of life (or anything that resembles life), either.

This is why I have stuffed animals in my office space.

I do not have a whole menagerie similar to what a little girl might have in her bedroom. I only have three stuffed animals at the moment. Please allow me to introduce you to each of them.

First, there is the Maryland Quarter Bear. For those of you unfamiliar with Quarter Bears, they came out around the turn of the millennium, when the 50 state quarters were being minted and distributed. Each little teddy bear represents a U.S. state, is a different color, and has a little pocket for holding the quarter that represents its state. Since I was born, was raised, and currently live in Maryland, I purchased the Maryland bear decades ago and inserted a Maryland quarter, with the State House design visible, into its pocket. It is fuzzy, black in color, and has the iconic Maryland flag embroidered on its back. Looking at it gives me a sense of state pride.

Then there is Roary, who is a Beanie Baby lion. Remember the Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s? I did not rush out and buy all of them (some of them sold for outrageous prices), but I told myself that I had to have just one. I chose Roary because the lion is my favorite animal, and I paid a reasonable price for him. Sometimes I have to laugh at myself when I look at him because he reminds me of how I almost got sucked into the Beanie Baby fad (or perhaps I did get sucked into it).

Last, but not least, there is Garfield. Yes, as in the famous orange cat. He has been my favorite comic strip character since I was eight years old, and I collect all kinds of items with his likeness. (I even have a cloth Garfield mask, which was made for and worn during the COVID-19 pandemic.) The stuffed Garfield on my bookshelf wears a chef’s hat and an apron that reads, “I LOVE LASAGNA!” I obtained it in a Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Lake George, New York when I was about nine.

Do you have (or do you admit to having) stuffed animals in your workspace? What are they?